Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist Of Arland Review

Such a pretty logo.

BETCHA DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING! ...Okay the select people that I've been gushing to about this game might've known...BUT NOT ANYONE ELSE!

Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist Of Arland is the first installment of the Arland series, but is actually the 11th installment of the Atelier series, a very set of popular games in japan, most of which have sadly not seen a North American release, with releases starting all the way back on the PS1, however this is Atelier's first outing on the PS3, with this game being released in fall 2010. It's also worth mentioning that all of the games aren't connected to each other, only games with the same title, so for example Atelier Marie, Atelier Elie, and Atelier Lilie all take place in Salburg, and are therefore connected in some way, however the next game, Atelier Judie, takes place in a totally different land, with no connection to the previous 3 titles. As I mentioned earlier, Rorona is the first installment of the Arland series, meaning that if you have no previous experience with the series, you can still jump right in.

In this game you control a young alchemist in training by the name of Rorolina Frixell, she is currently studying alchemy under her current master, Astrid Zexis. Astrid is a brilliant but generally lazy alchemist, Rorona began studying under Astrid after she saved Rorona's parents from an illness through the power of Alchemy but was unable to pay afterwards, she's currently working to pay off her debt. Due to Astrid's general laziness, and also her slightly unpleasant attitude towards most people, the workshop has a pretty bad reputation amongst the townspeople, which is the setup for our plot. One day a knight from the kingdom by the name of Sterk informs Rorona that the workshop will be shut down unless she can prove it's worth by completing various assignments, and reporting each one over a period of 3 months, if she is unable to do this, then the workshop will be closed and Astrid will be exiled from the kingdom. Upon hearing this, Astrid informs Rorona that she'll be forced to come with her as she doesn't intend to forget Rorona's debt so easily, gives the workshop to Rorona, tells her to do it, and goes to take a nap, yes Astrid is my favorite character ever. Rorona must now journey all over the land, fighting monsters, performing alchemy, and doing quests for the townspeople, to save the workshop.

Now for my first problem with the game, the time system is FAR too constricting, there's no time to really enjoy the game to it's fullest because you'll find yourself scraping up trust points, which are given out in miniscule amounts, and completing assignments, leaving little time for exploration, also battling enemies isn't as important of a mechanic as it could be, I've beaten this game with Rorona being at level 25, there's no way the game should be beaten that way

Mahou Shoujo Rorona-chan!

But in all honesty that's my only complaint about this game, everything else, from the colorful cast of the characters, to the cute graphics, to the wonderful alchemy system, was all done very well. There are multiple endings that you can get depending on your party members and your actions through the game, which will keep you busy for a long time if you're a perfectionist, however there's no aftergame/infinite play mode, you must start over after beating the game with only your monster encyclopedia remaining, and to be honest the endings aren't worth another playthrough to get.

Overall Thoughts: This game is great for people who are into Rune Factory style RPGs like myself, great characters, graphics, and fun gameplay makes this a good game, but it's held back from being as good as it could be by it's restrictive assignment element, also no after game hurts it a lot as well, it gives you an engaging world but it doesn't let you explore it completely, that's generally the opposite of what these types of games should strive to do. 6/10